Speaker 1in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, I can think of two cities that fit this perfect scenario. Four or five years ago, they were both still very small, around 10,000 people, and had the ability to grow very, very quickly. One chose to just sit tight. They didn't think that they had money, so they didn't go through the efforts of trying to get infrastructure built and using the different mechanisms to finance that. It can all be done, right? The other city said, hey, you know what? We're going to find a way. We're going to say yes to development, and we're going to find a way to make it happen, and they did. They started literally the same size, and the difference in five years is absolutely mind-blowing. Hey, what's going on, everybody? Welcome back to the
Speaker 2Land Development Podcast. I am your host, Ryan Glick. We have an industry news episode for you today, and joining me, as always, is Charles Covey. How's it going, Charles? Good, Ryan. How are you? Doing pretty good. We've got, here in Iowa, it's the second week of school, so that's kind of the perfect timing of when the kids will start to bring some colds and stuff home because of the cesspool of the schools. All the germs are passed around. Yes, exactly. This is the perfect timing where things get to come home and I get to test my own immune system, which is just wonderful. Other than that, we've got three things we're going to get into today. We're going to revisit home prices across the country and in a few major metros. Second topic, we're going to get into some of the labor challenges around the country and whether people or robots will be the ones that will be filling the gap there. Then lastly, we're going to talk about, as we start to approach the midterms, what are people thinking of the tariffs specifically? Because that, has a direct impact on our industry, but I came across a poll specifically in the state of Texas about what voters who are looking ahead to the midterms, what their thoughts are on the tariffs and everything. We're going to touch on that at the end here. But before we get into our first article, I did want to jump into a quick example of approvals in my local market that I saw over the last week. Those of you who are watching, you'll see I just pulled up a map on the screen and I'm highlighting a couple of different spots around the Des Moines Metro. We have the city of Waukee out west and then we have the city of Urbandale. So they basically touch, those cities touch each other. And right here, we have a Walmart requesting to build a Walmart super center out here in Waukee. And then up in Urbandale, just off of Interstate 8035, there's a Buc-ee's that submitted a request or proposal to build a Walmart super center out here in Waukee. And then up in Urbandale, just off of Interstate 8035, there's a Buc-ee's that submitted a Walmart super center out here in Waukee. And then up in Interstate 8035, there's a Buc-ee's that submitted a Walmart super center out here in Waukee. And then up in Interstate 8035, there's a Buc-ee's that submitted a Walmart super center out here in Waukee. And then up in Interstate 8035, there's a Buc-ee's that submitted a Walmart super center out here in Waukee. And then up in Interstate 8035, there's a Buc-ee's that submitted a Walmart super center out here in Waukee. And then up in Interstate 8035, there's a Buc-ee's that submitted a Walmart super center out here in Waukee. And then up in Interstate 8035, there's a Buc-ee's that submitted a Walmart super center out here in Waukee. And then up in Interstate 8035, there's a Buc-ee's that submitted a Walmart super center out here in Waukee. And then up in Interstate 8035, there's a Buc-ee's that submitted a Walmart super center out here in Waukee. And then up in Interstate 8035, there's a Buc-ee's that submitted a Walmart super center out here in Waukee. And then up in Interstate 8035, there's a Buc-ee's that submitted a Walmart super center out here in Waukee. And then up in Interstate 8035, there's a Buc-ee's that submitted a Walmart super center out here in Waukee. And then up in Interstate 8035, there's a Buc-ee's that submitted a Walmart super center out here in Waukee. And then up in Interstate 8035, there's a Buc-ee's that submitted a Walmart super center out here in Waukee. And then up in Interstate 8035, there's a Buc-ee's that submitted a Walmart super center out here in Waukee. And then up in Interstate 8035, there's a Buc-ee's that submitted a Walmart super center out here in Waukee. And then up in Interstate 8035, there's a Buc-ee's that submitted a Walmart super center out here in Waukee. And then up in Interstate 8035, there's a Buc-ee's that submitted a Walmart super center out here in Waukee. And then up in Interstate 8035, there's a Buc-ee's that submitted a Walmart super center out here in Waukee. And then up in Interstate 8035, there's a Buc-ee's that submitted a Walmart super center out here in Waukee. And then up in Interstate 8035, there's a Buc-ee's that submitted a Walmart super center out here in Waukee. And then up in Interstate 8035, there's a Buc-ee's that submitted a Walmart super center out here in Waukee. And then up in Interstate 8035, there's a Buc-ee's that submitted a Walmart super center out here in Waukee. And then up in Interstate 8035, there's a Buc-ee's that submitted a Walmart super center out here in Waukee. And then up in Interstate 8035, there's a Buc-ee's that submitted a Walmart super center out here in Waukee. And then chimed in and said, hey, we're happy to do business here with you. But what's interesting about this is even the governor got in on the conversation. So the governor of Iowa chimed in and she said, Buc-ee's brings more jobs, more visitors, more tax revenue and more momentum to Iowa. It's exactly the kind of economic investment that moves communities forward. Disappointing the Urbandale City Council doesn't see that. But we're working to find another community who will. And then again, another reason I wanted to show this is because if you look at the comments on X below her post, you see the perfect example of everybody screaming at each other about, you know, the left versus the right versus this is the right way. This is the wrong way. You've got one comment here saying, why do we need another greedy corporation who will receive big tax breaks and cost us taxpayer money? You just don't get it. They screw mom and pop businesses. And then we've got the opposite side saying Urbandale is ran by a bunch of idiots who are anti-investment and most likely anti-investor since he is not a liberal. And I assume he's talking about the owner of Buc-ee's. But let's look at the flip side really quick because then you go out to Waukee. Waukee has a proposal for a Walmart super center that is in a spot where there's a lot of concerns about traffic out here because you don't really need a grocery store out here. For those of you who are familiar with some of the Midwest stores, we have a Hy-Vee right here. You have a Fairway in the area. You've got an Aldi right here. And you've got a Target right over here. So you don't really need a Walmart super center. But Waukee, who has been pretty pro-growth, passed this. And they said they'll figure out a way with traffic and everything like that to make it work. And so you kind of get examples here of one community who's been very pro-growth lately and another community that basically shut down a Buc-ee's coming into the Urbandale area. And this is really a microcosm of what everybody probably sees around the country.
Speaker 1It's really interesting to me. We see this in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. I can think of two cities that fit this perfect scenario. They were four or five years ago. They were both still very small, around 10,000 people, and had the ability to grow very, very quickly. One chose to just sit tight. They didn't think that they had money, so they didn't go through the efforts of trying to get infrastructure built and using the different mechanisms to finance that. It can all be done, right? The other group, the other city said, hey, you know what? We're going to find a way. We're going to say yes to development, and we're going to find a way to make it happen. And they did. And they started literally the same size. And the difference in five years is absolutely mind-blowing. So same approximate, same proximity from Dallas. They got, you know, they could have, they had all the same advantages that each other has. Very, very similar cities. And one said yes to growth. And the other one just stayed put. And it's a very big difference. Because the one that stayed put, now they still don't have money for their police department. Now they still don't have money to improve. The city hall is still in an old building. Like, all of these things could have improved dramatically if they would have been able to say yes and been more forward-thinking. And the city that said yes, everything is going great. They got new buildings. They got all kinds of dollars coming in. So it's a very big difference in those that can say yes and those that don't.
Speaker 2And I know we all know this, but it just shows the power that the city council has as well. So, you know, whoever's getting into those seats on city council and the different committees have a lot of power in deciding whether these projects are going to go forward or not. And so if those individuals getting into those seats are maybe more worried about being reelected versus taking the city forward, well, you're going to see exactly what happened with Urbandale there and the Buckeyes and not trying to find a way to make it work. But let's go ahead and get into our first article. This one comes to us from Quotality. The headline reads, Seattle is the only major metro way down in the red at about 1.9% negative. 16 of 20 metros accelerated from May to June. New York posted the strongest month up 1%. Prices are up, but at roughly the rate of inflation, not a boom. So I have a graph here that I was going to pull up that just kind of shows some city by city look at where things went from June to, I'm sorry, from May to June. And the increases. So you can see Chicago here, which we just mentioned at the 6.9%. And on the actual website, if you guys go into the show notes for this episode and you want to go through this, if you hover on each of these on the website, it will tell you the specific percentages for all these cities here. But you see over on the negative side, so the decrease in prices, you see Portland, Dallas, Phoenix, Tampa, Denver, Las Vegas, and Seattle. And then on the increase side, we have, like I said, Chicago, New York, Cleveland, San Francisco, Boston. Miami, Minneapolis, D.C., and then also L.A. and San Diego. Not I don't know that there's any surprises here. I just want to make sure that we we stay at least to keep a pulse on some of the pricing changes and stuff in the housing industry at large. But what are your thoughts, Charles, when you see some of these numbers?
Speaker 1for us to say, okay, it's the bottom. them and everything will go up from here. I don't think we've reached that point yet, but we're certainly not in free fall and things are relatively stable or going down a little or going up a little depending on where you're at. What is interesting, though, is that the Case-Shiller Index, which they're using here, it's pretty long in its lag. So we're probably actually looking at decisions that consumers made in the spring. So I think in a month or two, now we're going to see what did early summer, which is a big time for moving. Summertime is big if you're moving kids, you know, into another school district. A lot of that movement happens over summer. So I think it'll be really interesting to see, is there any notable change? And I wish, I mean, good grief, it's 2026. How do we still have so much lacking data? You know, we've got AI that could do all this crazy stuff, but yet somehow all of our data is three to six months behind. I can't answer that question because it doesn't make sense to me, but it is behind. And so in a couple of months, maybe we'll see some interesting data as to what the early summer did. Yeah, it's funny because
Speaker 2when I was looking at this article, I had to double check it. I'm like, is this article from, like, is this an old article? And no, it's just like the data that we're always having access to and that we look at tends to be, like you said, very trailing. So yeah, you're definitely spot on there. This episode of the Land Development Podcast is brought to you by First Continental. For more than 30 years, First Continental has been a trusted financing partner for many of the nation's leading home builders and developers, providing non-recourse lot acquisition and development loans in over 40 markets throughout the South, Southeast, and Mountain West. During periods of changing market cycles, First Continental has proven to be a consistent and dependable lending partner, one that stays committed instead of retreating when conditions shift. Unlike many private lenders and banks, they offer genuinely non-recourse loans, free of hidden provisions that could trigger personal guarantees. This structure ensures true alignment and shared success in delivering new home communities. From application to payoff, the process is straightforward, efficient, and designed to keep projects moving forward. Whether working with publicly traded or privately owned production builders, First Continental brings experience, clarity, and flexibility to every deal. To learn more about how they can support your next community, visit firstcontinental.com. All right, let's get back to the show. All right, well, let's go ahead and move on to the next segment, which is from the comments. I have a couple of comments here today. Both of these are from Instagram. First one is from ProTechBuild. When government makes more money on a project than the builder, but makes it more and more difficult for the builder to build, there is a problem. There is a problem. I would agree. Next one here comes from GarrettTM. Sometimes the general public doesn't want a business on certain property so badly that the commission kills every bit of it, mostly because it is those same commissioners that still have to ask for money to build it. So, I'm going to go ahead and ask people to vote for them, which is kind of funny that this one is in here after that Bucky
Speaker 1situation in Urbandale. It sounds exactly the same. Yeah, this is a challenge. Supposed to be, those public servants are supposed to do the thing that's best for the city. Not the thing that is the most popular, but the thing that is factually the best. And oftentimes, they're just doing the thing that gets them reelected, whether that is or not is not the best. And that's the challenge because people, once you get a taste of that sort of sense of power, you want some more of that. There's a dopamine hit there. It feels good when people notice you when you walk down the street because you're a city council member. And there are some great city council members that I've dealt with. But there's also a lot that have a challenge looking past that public opinion to do what's actually the best thing.
Speaker 2Well, let's go ahead and move on to the second article, which this one comes, I have a few different sources on this one because we wanted to take a look at the labor gap related to construction. And we're going to take a look at the problem that we're currently experiencing with this labor gap. And then we're going to look at a couple possible solutions around people being the solution and around more of machines and robotics being the solution. So let's first take a look at the problem here. So construction needs 349,000 net new workers in 2026 just to break even. That number climbs to 456,000 in 2027. Eighty-two percent of contractors say they cannot fill hourly craft positions. Eighty percent cannot fill salaried roles, the worst in three years. Roughly 41 percent of today's construction workforce is projected to retire by 2031. Labor shortages are the number one cause of project delays cited by 45 percent of the contractors. Nearly four in five contractors had at least one project delayed in the past year. Now, if we look at the human answer, like what's being done to get more people into the trades? So construction apprenticeships are actually growing and fast. Non-union apprenticeship enrollment was up 60 percent from 2020 to 2025. Union program enrollment is up 21 percent over the same five years. Non-union completions is up 47 percent and union completions is up 19 percent. Ninety-three percent of construction apprenticeship programs are now non-union. Fiscal year 2025, about 324,000 apprentices in the pipeline. Forty thousand finished. Vocational two-year college enrollment hit 871,000, up almost 20 percent since 2020. And the problem is only 40,000 are completing per year against a 349,000 worker gap. So with this becomes the question of how do we fill this gap? Do we need to fill this gap or is there, do we need to spend more time on getting more people into the trades? Or are we going to see more of the role of the government? Or are we going to see more of the role of the government? Robotics and machinery stepping in to fill some of those gaps. And so I pulled, looked at a few different articles here and pulled some information in on both the investments that have been going into robotics, but also some of the projects and equipment that have been used on some projects. And so construction robotics firms raised close to $1 billion in the last year. SoftBank put $200 million into Gravis Robotics. Bedrock Robotics raised $270 million in February at a $1.75 million. And so construction robotics firms raised close to $1 billion in the last year. Field AI raised $405 million across two rounds. Contractor robotics adoption grew 45% year over year. The pilot only group nearly tripled. Bedrock's driverless excavators are working now for Sunt and Zachary. Zachary's site work job, 1.2 million cubic yards have been moved. No operator in the seat. And excavators take about five years to master and are 25% of a typical fleet. So before I get into kind of looking at some of the robotics in more details, Charles, when you see some of these numbers and some of the challenges we're having, it feels like we're only going to see more and more of the, the automated machines stepping in to fill some of those gaps. What, what do you think we're going to see?
Speaker 1This is an area that I spend a lot of time because I'm heavily involved in construction businesses and in blue collar businesses. And so this is something that comes up pretty often. And this is something that comes up pretty often. And so this is something that comes up pretty often. And this is something that comes up pretty often. And this is something that comes up pretty often. And this is something that comes up pretty often. And this is something that comes up pretty often. And this is something that comes up pretty often. And this is something that comes up pretty often. And this is something that comes up pretty often. And this is something that comes up pretty often. And this is something that comes up pretty often. And this is something that comes up pretty often. And this is something that comes up pretty often. And this is something that comes up pretty often. And this is something that comes up pretty often. And this is something that comes up pretty often. And this is something that comes up pretty often. And this is something that comes up pretty often. And , this is something that comes up pretty often. And this is something that comes up pretty often. And this is something that comes up pretty often. And this is something that comes up pretty often. And convinced that in the next 24 to 36 months, nearly all of the construction jobs would be replaced by robots. Now, I know that that's not true. Partly because the robots that we have, the technology that we have isn't anywhere close to doing many of the tasks. You think about taping and bedding, right? Taping and bedding and painting. Robots are terrible at this, right? It's very difficult for them to see and adjust. It's a human being. I don't know if you've ever tried to tape a bed. It's pretty hard. I'm terrible. I make a mess. And I would probably be better than the robot. So it's just going to be a disaster. There are some things that they can do. For example, running equipment. That's a great one. So I think there are going to be big disruptions in site work, moving dirt. I think utilities is a little tougher because now you got trenches and putting pipes together. That's a little tougher to do all machines. And a lot of the stuff that happens inside the house, very tough to do with machines. I think there are some elements like we've seen bricklaying machines that are pretty effective. We've seen definitely some ways to speed up concrete. You know, we're not using laser screeds in residential very often. But we're doing all that in big commercial. So we're seeing some of that big commercial technology eventually will probably trickle its way into residential. There are some things like the painting, installing cabinets, like those are not going to be, you know, I've seen some robots do tile. It only works on certain kinds of tile over a period of time. It doesn't work in a little bitty, you know, six by nine bathroom. It's just not enough room for the robot to do its thing. So there are definitely areas that robotics can help. And there are definitely areas where it's not going to work very well. A big part of this is the systems that we build with. We've created a scenario that is human designed. Tape embed is another one I'll go back to. Laying tile, laying carpet. These are things that are designed around the way a human works. The systems don't really work very well with robots. And so it may take a new type of construction mechanism to really fit the robot better. So if we're going to think about how do we, how do we take a wall board and put it on a wall and make it smooth and paint it? There's probably a new way to do that, that a robot can do easier, as opposed to the way that we're currently doing it. Does that make sense? There's going to be some new processes needed to really leverage the robotics element.
Speaker 2I was thinking the same thing and it feels like that's That's what the data was showing us too in some of these articles is that you're starting to see more of the machinery and more equipment in certain jobs, but there's still a need for people. And when you think about fitting in those tight spaces, what type of robot or machine is going to fit in the type of spaces? And that's where you get into the humanoids, right? That we see Elon Musk has talked about creating millions of these things and you've got other companies doing the same thing. I thought really quick before I talk about the humanoid stats of what that looks like and what they actually are good at or what they can do. I'm not sure if some of you have paid attention to any of the robotics games that have taken place over in Beijing, but it's essentially almost like an Olympics for humanoid robots. And so I thought I'd play a short video here to give you guys a little laugh. And this is the best AI robot fails from Beijing's humanoids. Humanoid robot game. So I'm sure these robots are paying attention to me laughing at them right now. And so they'll remember that, you know, when they get a little further along and they're a little more capable than they are now. But when I see stuff like this, it makes me realize they're the humanoids are, I think, a little ways off before they can do some of the things that humans can actually do. So here we go. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. This one made me laugh here. It's like a little kid on the ground throwing a tantrum.
Speaker 1Turn him off.
Speaker 2Well, anyway, I think that's it's it's pretty funny to look at that. I know they're going to improve and I know there's a lot that are more probably sophisticated than the ones we saw right there. But I did look up some information. About humanoids and where they're at currently. And so from what I found, humanoid robots fail about 88 percent of real world tasks. Stanford found robots scoring 90 percent in simulations succeed at in simulation succeed at 12 percent of real tasks. Oh, that's a big gap. Yeah. The winners are not humanoids. They are the boring bolt on retrofits bedrocks kit mounts to an existing machine in a few hours. No permanent modifications. No downtime. And 360. Degree sensor view. And really, the robot that pencils does a single repetitive job all night without a break. So pretty interesting. This will be interesting to follow. I mean, just like AI, this this stuff is moving so fast and they continue to make progress with things. So I think it'll be something we'll want to keep an eye on and see what this looks like. With that said, let's go and move on to our final article here. Well, we have a couple of different articles here, but this one comes to us from an article from Connor Boyack. And then also AGC of America. Tariffs are now both a cost line and a political problem. All right. From the first article here. Construction input costs are up 7.1 percent from July 2025 to July 2026. Diesel fuel is up 44.2 percent. Liquid asphalt up 45.2 percent. Aluminum mill shapes up 40.5 percent. Steel mill products up 22.5 percent. Copper and brass are both up 18.4 percent. Lumber and plywood up 9.9 percent. Construction worker wages are up 5.2 percent on top of the materials. And tariffs on petroleum products and metals run as high as 50 percent. Meanwhile, home prices are up only 1.5 percent. So the squeeze is the whole story. Now, I want to bring this up. I know we've talked about tariffs recently and the impact they have. But I think it's becoming even more important now outside of even just the the impact to all of our products. I think it's becoming even more important now outside of even just the the impact to all of our products. I think it's becoming even more important now outside of even just the the impact to all of our products. I think it's becoming even more important now outside of even just the the impact to all of our products. I think it's becoming even more important now outside of even just the the impact to all of our products. I think it's becoming even more important now outside of even just the the impact to all of our products. I think it's becoming even more important now outside of even just the the impact to all of our products. I think it's becoming even more important now outside of even just the the impact to all of our products. I think it's becoming even more important now outside of even just the the impact to all of our products. I think it's becoming even more important now outside of even just the the impact to all of our products. I think it's becoming even more important now outside of even just the the impact to all of our products. . I think it's becoming even more important now outside of even just the the impact to all of our products. I feel like something's going to have to give here. People aren't very happy with it. And depending on what's what we're going to see happen in the midterms with voters and everything across the country, the tariffs don't seem like a popular thing for most voters right now, it appears.
Speaker 1Yeah, what a turn of events because it was supposed to be this great thing is going to bring back, you know, bring back this whole tariff policy of old where tariffs were there to put the burden on these other countries instead of the American people. And that is absolutely not how it went down. So I don't know who gave this advice and didn't plan ahead. How did how did this go so badly? It's almost comical how badly it went. And as a conservative, I this is a pretty big stain and I don't like it. And I don't know. I don't I don't know what to do about it. I don't know how that information got conveyed like, hey, let's do this. It'll be great. And now look what we have. So I don't know what your thoughts. How did it go so poorly?
Speaker 2You know, I'm. I'm not 100 percent sure. I just the thing that drives me crazy is I see things like this and I see the things that are actually impacting people day to day. And then I see the proposal to name a lake Lake America. And I'm just like, and I know it's all public. It's all publicity stunt. And it's it doesn't have any it's it's not there's no real meaning. It's just like the Gulf of America versus the Gulf of Mexico. And I just would like to focus on the things that actually matter. And can get people back to being able to afford things. And so I don't know. I just I don't I feel like Trump is very stubborn. And so I don't think he would ever admit that something is not working the way that he wanted it to work. And so I feel like the tariffs aren't going away.
Speaker 1Well, I think just information this week, I think just yesterday, Commerce Secretary Ludnick said that there's going to be a new round of tariffs on. They're dividing it up into smaller and smaller definable categories. Because things would have been at one point you would have had, you know, computer stuff, whatever that title was, would have all been lumped together. And that's not accurate. Right. There's all kinds of, you know, nuance. And so they're breaking these up into smaller categories. I think that just based on what I saw with Secretary Ludnick's announcement this week, they're going to break this down. We've got semiconductors and a few other things that are going to get tariffs. They're trying to drive manufacturing. Back to the U.S. Right. Make it more competitive for for companies to locate in the U.S. Because then that creates jobs that creates dollars. The premise is good. But it needs to work. So there's been some just because the premise looks good on paper doesn't always mean that it plays out that way. And it's kind of what we've seen in the last 12 months. So maybe that there's maybe there's a scenario here that can that can work better. So hopefully, hopefully they're using the right information to make this analysis and to make these changes.
Speaker 2Yeah. And one last thing. I'll add on this, too. I know I've talked about it on the show before, but, you know, personally experiencing the increased in cost at the grocery store and everything. I recently was I needed to buy an external drive to basically back up. Besides putting stuff in the cloud, I want to back up some of the some of these episodes on a on a solid state drive. And so I went to buy one of those. And, you know, prices have gone way up because of all the data centers and all the demand around that. But. I was doing a little bit of research and, you know, 15 to 25 percent of the increase in price is due to tariffs. So even just going buying something as simple as an external hard drive to store data is adding 15 to 25 percent on top of what we used to pay for it. So I do think it hits us in a lot of different ways. And it's obviously hitting our industry as well. So, yeah, we'll we'll see what changes with this. But I do think it's going to have a negative impact in the elections this fall.
Speaker 1Based on what I can tell, you know, we got that. We had the February thing with the Supreme Court. They struck down the tariffs as is. So then it's a the desire to monetize the tariffs is not that didn't go away. Right. The administration still had that. It's not like it just got wiped off the map. But they they were told, hey, you can't do it the way you did it. And so now we're starting to see the results of the other ways that they're going to try to go about accomplishing the same thing. So that might be something that we can follow, because there's I'm sure that there's a bunch of offices in D.C. with a bunch of people working on this and they're slowly trickling out. Now they're going about this in a more a little bit more. tactical manner, as opposed to just the scatter shooting method of before, because obviously that didn't work. So now with this more tactical approach, I think we're going to continue to see this consistent release of new tariff related items over the next number of
Speaker 2months. Well, Charles, any final thoughts before we wrap up here as you're taking a drink of your drink? I'm good to go. Awesome. All right, guys. Well, that is all for this episode. Appreciate you tuning in as always. If you're not already subscribed, please click that button. We'd love to have you back for the next one. Otherwise, we will see you all back here tomorrow for our next interview episode. Take care.
PodcastTranscript AI